(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic document processing system and an electronic document processor therefor, and more particularly to an electronic document processing system comprised of a plurality of electronic document processors connected to each other by a network, and an electronic document processor for the system.
(2) Description of the Related Art
A large number of documents are transmitted and received between companies and within each company, for daily operations. Among these documents, there are many which are circulated in a predetermined order for confirmation or denial, such as slips, circulars for approval of decisions, and statements of accounts for traveling expenses.
Recently, a work flow management method has been spreading itself into a large number of companies. According to the work flow management method, a flow of such documents is computerized, thereby allowing computerized or electronic documents to be circulated through personal computers for processing, instead of paper documents being carried by office workers.
Many of work flow management systems are capable of tracking which document is now being processed at what processing stage, while retaining a high level of security.
Now, in processing documents typified by slips, new documents are often derived as demanded by the processing. In the case of processing slips, for instance, if an order for a certain completed product is placed with a company, the company who has received the order places orders for parts with its subcontractors who manufacture components of the completed product, and the subcontractors further places orders for parts with secondary subcontractors under the subcontractors. Thus, an order slip for ordering a certain completed product generates a plurality of order slips sent out to subcontractors or secondary subcontractors.
Documents derived from a certain document do not maintain continuity with the certain or original document, and conventionally, the derived documents have been handled as quite different documents from the original document. Therefore, it has been difficult to perform the above tracking operation on the derived documents.